US soldier’s Afghanistan firefight video creates furor

A US soldier has been accused of unwittingly creating propaganda for the Taliban after he filmed a dramatic firefight in Afghanistan in which he was reportedly shot four times.

The video attracted a considerable number of viewers after posted in September last year. It was viewed by more than 2.7 million online viewers, The Washington Post reported.

However Private First Class Ted Daniels, 37, said he never meant for the helmet camera footage of his unit coming under heavy machine gun fire to become public.

In the meantime Daniels said he was criticized by his commanders for the footage in which he cries of “Help me” and “I’m hit”.

“The rest of the squad was pinned down by machine gun fire, I didn’t start the video until a few minutes into the firefight,” he said adding that, “I came out into the open to draw fire so my squad could get to safety.”

The commanders had reportedly said that the video could be used as a promotional material by the Taliban group.

“If I were a Taliban propaganda video producer, I would be personally thanking this soldier for uploading this video,” Army spokesman Major Chris Thomas told The Washington Post.

In the footage, the father-of-two can be heard panting as he climbs over rocky terrain and takes aim at Taliban forces.

But PFC Daniels said he originally intended to upload the video to a private account, but it was picked up by YouTube user Funker530 and quickly became an online hit.